Mythogenesis Monday

mythogenesis ~ origin of myths

Did I say summer was here? We’re past the solstice, but it’s still been cool enough that I’m wearing socks and shoes most days. While I’m glad it’s still cool enough to sleep at night, it could stand to be a little warmer during the day.

And I do mean a little. I’ve heard rumors that we’re in for a seriously hot July and August and I don’t do well in excessive heat – especially when I’m trying to sleep. Yes, we have an air conditioner we can use upstairs, and fans, but they’re noisy, so even if I manage to get to sleep with them on it’s not a restful sleep.

But there’s no denying that summer is officially here. And with it comes the long list of things we want to get done – the roof over the front porch, re-designing and re-building the pond garden, and a hundred and one other things on our to-do list.

Once upon a time our pond garden looked like this:

That was taken about eight years ago. As you know, since then we’ve had to have the tree removed and it looks something like this now:

It’s actually not quite that bad looking. Since then the hubby has cleaned it up, dug out any of the plants that could be saved, and he got rid of that wild rose bush along the fence that suddenly appeared one day and has tried to take over that corner ever since.

The pond itself isn’t going to be much bigger, when we re-do this garden, but it will be deeper, maybe even deep enough to have fish in it. The garden itself will be bigger, with a retaining wall in the back. We’ve been tossing around ideas for the wall and right now we’re leaning towards a living wall – a vertical garden of sorts.

The other thing we have planned for the back yard is a vegetable garden, or to be more precise, a series of vegetable gardens. These will be raised beds along the fence between the garden shed (near the back of the house) and the pond garden. We’re thinking three, maybe four of them depending on how big they are. It’s the perfect spot for them, and having them raised will make them easier to take care of.

But one thing I know for sure about the vegetable garden, I’ll be letting the hubby and the grandbaby take care of the planting. They have super green thumbs. Remember the tomato seeds they planted?

Shortly after that picture was taken I transplanted them to a bigger planter box before moving them outside for the summer. And look at them now!

Not only are they blooming, they’ve already got a few tiny green tomatoes hidden in all that foliage. I can’t for the life of me remember if these are supposed to be regular sized tomatoes or cherry tomatoes, I guess we’ll see how big the ones that are started get before they’re done.

One thing for sure, we won’t be lacking for tomatoes this summer!

Mucopurulent Monday

mucopurulent ~ of mucus and pus

It’s the 24th of May
The queen’s birthday
And if we don’t get a holiday
We’ll all run away!

Yes, I know it’s actually the 21st of May, but that’s the way the rhyme goes. :-P

It’s the first official long weekend of the summer season for us here in Canada, the weekend where cottages are opened and gardens are planted. The barbeques are being brushed off as I type. When I was a kid it was also the time for major fireworks displays, but although some people do still set them off now, the big fireworks holiday is Canada Day.

I got a jump start on the weekend by starting my planting during the week. Wednesday the grandbaby and I went shopping for plants for the small square garden at the front of the house. Of course by the time we got them home there wasn’t enough time to plant them that day, so the next day I went ahead and bought the rest of my bedding plants to have ready for Friday.

Friday was a little cooler, but we filled the square garden and the long narrow garden along the front:

But while the front is looking pretty good, the back is another story. This is the pond garden:

We were already planning to redo this garden, but we were hoping to save at least some of the plants. It needs the saw dust removed (obviously), a retaining wall built at the back, and the entire garden will be more than doubled in size. We want to get a properly formed shell for the pond itself, one deep enough that maybe we can have fish. If we can get it to the point where it’s ready for plants by the end of the summer I think it’ll be a job well done. We can worry about the actual plants next summer.

Another project for the back yard was going to be putting in a couple of raised vegetable beds. This won’t be a particularly difficult project, but it will be a little time consuming so it’s been put off until later in the summer. Once again, if we can have them ready for planting by the end of the summer, then in the spring all I’ll have to do is pick out my seeds.

Speaking of vegetables though, remember the tomato seeds the grandbaby and her grapy planted?

Aren’t they cute? Yes, well, a funny thing happens when you leave plants in the sun and keep watering them. They tend to grow. I thinned them out once, but now they need bigger pots (maybe even later today). I’m beginning to suspect they’re not going to be cherry tomatoes as I’d first hoped, but some much bigger kind.

So… How’s your garden coming?